Page 26 of Unfriend Me
Lucy:I’m on my way to the apple orchard with Roxy. You’re welcome to come if you don’t mind a toddler hijacking the convo at inappropriate times.
Hazel:Oh! I’d love to pick some apples! I have an idea for an upside-down apple cake!
Lenora:What kind of problem are you having? I just need to know whether to bring toys from my shop or just alcohol.
Amelia:Hmm…both??
Hazel:My favorite kind of party! Sex toys and alcohol!
Finnie:I’ll be a designated driver as it seems y’all might be plastered by the time we leave with our apples.
Lucy:Same. ; )
Amelia:Okay. See you in an hour. I have to call in sick and sneak out.
* * *
The rows of apple trees went on for seemingly miles. There was something so comforting about the smell of apples in the crisp fall breeze. The sun was out, but the wind kept me tugging my sweater around me. I’d been coming here to pick apples every year for my whole life, sometimes with my mom, sometimes with friends, but this time, I wasn’t focused on the activity. I kept one eye on Roxy darting under the canopy of tree leaves, each shiny apple drawing a gasp of excitement, but focused on telling the girls what had happened between Titus and me last night.
“What? That’s amazing!” Hazel jumped up and down, dropped her basket of apples, and slammed me in a bear hug.
I chuckled at her enthusiasm, but sobered when the rest of my friends gave me more tempered smiles. My stomach was in knots from putting it all out there, but then again, these were my girls. If I couldn’t trust them, I couldn’t trust anyone.
“So? What should I do?” I asked, shifting from foot to foot.
“I think you shoulddoTitus,” Lucy answered with a cheeky grin.
“Hear, hear!” Finnie added, everyone cracking up.
My cheeks flushed red, and I had to admit, the molten heat spreading through my core told me I liked that idea very much indeed. And that made me so jumpy, I put my hair up in a bun just to have something to do with my hands.
“He’s ridiculously hot, I’ll give you that. I mean, who knew the lanky kid would grow into his limbs and then grow slabs of muscle?” I had to take a deep breath to calm my heart rate thinking about him outside the hotel without his shirt on. “But I’m so worried we’ll ruin everything if we do. Like, what if we sleep together and it’s horrible? Or it’s good, but we don’t last as a couple and then we’re awkward around each other? I’ve been friends with him since sixth grade! I can’t be flippant about possibly ruining all that!”
I started walking, then realized they weren’t following me. I turned around to find them all giving me patient little smiles that sparked irritation. I hated not being in on a secret.
“What?”
Lenora stepped forward. “I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that Titus has been harboring ‘more-than-friends’ feelings for you for years, so I doubt acting on those feelings will really change anything. If you both feel the same way now, that would mean you’d get along even better, right?”
I tilted my head and considered what she said. Something about the idea of Titus always having had feelings toward me set my stomach into a flip-flopping frenzy. “I don’t know about that. We’ve just been friends. That’s it.”
“I only moved here recently, so I only saw Titus when you were dating Daire, but I thought he was perennially grumpy. Only after you broke up with Daire, did the free-spirited Titus show up. I’ve always thought Titus had feelings for you.” Finnie lifted a shoulder.
Roxy slammed into Lucy’s legs, almost bowling her over. When she’d righted herself, she propped Roxy up on her hip, bucket and all. “Trust us when we say there’s always been some unrequited feelings on his end. But that’s not important. What’s important is howyoufeel abouthim.”
I sighed and gestured for us to walk down the sloped hill. We needed to pay for our apples and give Lucy a rest from carrying Roxy. “I guess I’ve always just put him in the friend box and didn’t even consider anything else. This new development is startling.”
Hazel snorted. “He punched Jake in the nose junior year after he broke up with you. ‘Just friends’ don’t do that.”
I nearly stumbled over a rock in the path. “What? He never told me that.” I knew he’d broken up with his girlfriend to take me to prom, but he never said he and Jake got into a fight.
“Remember when your car wouldn’t start that one night we were all set to go to a bonfire?” Lenora asked softly.
I frowned, barely remembering that night from probably six years ago. “Yeah, vaguely. It started right up the next morning, though.”
“Uh-huh. That’s because Titus spent hours fixing it in the parking lot of the hotel while we got drunk around the campfire.”
I spun around, dust flying over the toes of my black boots. “What?” My heart started beating dangerously fast.
